Snow Pictures

[MarkBarbieri]

Let's see some snow pictures. As a resident of southeast Texas, I don't get to take a lot of snow pictures, so I'm not missing this chance to start a snow thread. At the moment, I'm up in the mountains of Colorado watching a very fine, powdery snow fall. We've had about 10-12 centimeters so far.

Any good snow shooting advice? Snow is water, so be careful with your gear. It's also really white, which confuses the heck out of your exposure meter. My technique is to dial in +1 exposure compensation and then keep an eye on my LCD. If the snow looks grey, I keep boosting the exposure until I start seeing blinkies.

You can use the snow for white balancing. The snow here appears to be a bit bluish, so using it for white balance gives you a slightly warm picture. I guessing that is true of snow everywhere, but I'll defer to the experts on that one. I know that I've done a lousy job out white balancing the pictures below. I'm working on a nasty laptop, so I'm just doing the minimum necessary to make the pictures better than awful.

To show the snow falling, you probably want a relatively slow shutter speed. Something around 1/60 should work well. The same is true for rain.

Be careful about using a flash when it is snowing. It'll light up flakes near the camera and look funky.

It's so cold here that the pond has gone from liquid to solid.

I drug my lazy booty out into the freezing cold a 6:30 AM to set up for this stupid shot. I was hoping for partly cloudy skies, but the weather didn't cooperate. I'll try again later in the week.

There was a whole mess of these wild cow things munching on grass in the snow.

The big fun so far has been sledding. It was pretty patchy yesterday, but we had a few good runs.

I tried crushing a path in the snow this morning. The only that got crushed was me.

We went for a walk a little while ago.

Here's a look back at the house through the snow.

 

[mom2rtk]

Those shots are gorgeous!

No snow here in KC yet to speak of. They just said we're due for 3-9 inches here by Christmas morning! I'll be following along here for more tips!

 

[Groucho]

White balance is the only really tricky thing I've found - besides the cold, of course! The camera tends to get things a bit blue-ish. For exposure, spot or center-weighted may help. I also have my exposure point linked with my focus point, so that helps keep it exposing on the subject rather than just the snow.

A few shots... the first one is a not our kid but I think it's a cute shot.

My aunt surveying what was to become a community water park that she was in charge of.

The lack of footprints should tell you how hard the show was this day!

A couple of my boy from last winter. (Haven't had enough yet to warrant going out for photos!)

From the year before:

One of the best parts of playing in the snow is coming back inside!

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I should probably have started a thread on how to deal with snow and cold. The snow hear has me baffled. It's like powder. I can't make a snowman because it just falls apart. Ditto on making an igloo. I also can't figure out how to sled on it. I just keep sinking in.

Any advice? I thought about trying to wear a trail down on a good slope by repeatedly dragging a weighted sled over it. The problem is that, going up and down a slope with lots of snow is more work than I can handle. We're at 9,000 feet altitude and there isn't enough air here for doing much work.

 

[Groucho]

It might be too cold. The best snow is when it's right around freezing - it's a little bit wet and thicker and perfect for snowballs, snowmen, etc. When it gets too cold, it doesn't snow as much and when it does, it's more powdery and lousy for packing. If you're stuck with the powdery stuff, maybe try pouring some water on it, that should help for packing.

I haven't done a lot of sledding lately but I think needs either a nice thick base of wet snow or a nice icy crust on top (like it my photo of the kids getting swung on the sled.) The icy crust is probably the best but it can be dangerous, too - I bruised my ribs that day after not being able to stop and going straight into someone else's boot who had already crashed into a woodpile!

The elevation may or may not have anything to do with it... dunno about that part of the equation! But snow is definitely not all created equal.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

We're looking at a high of 17F today, so I don't think the snow will be getting wet. The kids have been sledding down the street, which seems to be working OK.

It's nasty out there. It's not just cold, it's windy. This dry snow blows like crazy. It has definitely convinced me that I'm best suited for warm climates. I don't mind visiting the cold, but I'd prefer not to stay. Hot weather can be uncomfortable, but this cold stuff hurts.

 

[boBQuincy]

We haven't had any measurable snow here yet this Winter so this is from a few years ago (Canon D30):

 

[kevrab]

Lighthouse at South Haven Michigan. It's treacherous on the pier going out there.

 

[JoeDif]

Here is one from last weekends storm

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Whoops--I screwed that up.

It looks overexposed.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I went out to shovel the driveway this morning. It was just a few degrees above zero. Our van was camouflaged.

This is the driveway, pre-shovel. I tried to clear it with this machine that's like a lawnmower for snow. It didn't work too well. It flung the snow in the air, but the wind blew it all over the place. That wasn't too bad, but the driveway is very sloped and the machine didn't handle well. I finally reverted to using a shovel.

It was super cold today. It's about 15 degrees and windy. The sun is out, but the sun doesn't seem to work as well up here.


We took the kids to the local pond, which is frozen solid. I'm not real comfortable with the idea of walking on water, but everyone else was gung-ho, so I gave it a whirl.

All that snow in the air was from the wind. It was really blowing out there.

This technically isn't a snow picture. This is my oldest trying to get warm after the skating.

 

[handicap18]

Very nice shots Mark. I haven't had any time to go out and take any snow pictures. We got about 8" from the last storm this past Sunday. Had some melting today as the temps got into the low 40's. Even with that we probably have about 10" on the ground still from the last 2 storms.

We have no plans for x-mas day tomorrow so we may have the kids burn off some steam in the snow tomorrow.

 

[kevrab]

I was on duty working the morning shift when we got dumped on with more than two feet of snow. Even my Jeep couldn't make it through til they plowed. I live a mile from our high school so I strapped on my snowshoes shot this and other folks digging out and e-mailed them into my newspaper. Never did make it in that day.

 

[kevrab]

 

[kevrab]

It looks overexposed.

HAH! It was my polar bear in a snowstorm photo.

 

[boBQuincy]

Here is my minivan in snow photo:

This was from our "100 year" snow, 24" in Raleigh NC! I was about 50 at the time so I probably won't see anything like this again. Ok with me!

 

[Ju Ju Bean]

Brian Head Utah last April.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Here is one that my seven year old took with the Canon D10 that Santa brought him. It's one of those moose type things with pointy horns.

 

[happyhah]

i love snow.....

 

[PhotographyDR]

As soon as the snow starts I am all over this one. Looks like today it is getting started.